Existing gift cards are generally not provided with aesthetic design except for their load value (i.e., amount placed on the card) and/or company logos. While some gift cards may include patterns or designs on the card stock, these patterns are provided by stock suppliers that are pre-printed on the material of the gift card and are not selected for printing by the customer. Moreover, a gift card customer may be unaccustomed to thinking of gift card design when purchasing. For example, gift card customers may simply consider how much to put on the gift card and which gift card stock to use from the limited selection available at a retail store when purchasing the gift card. This may be attributed to the association of gift card purchases as last minute gift ideas or impulse purchasing, both of which involve a quick transaction purchase. In this situation, the customer may simply be concerned with the ability to place a value on the card to be used as a gift. However, providing the opportunity for customers to design the aesthetic look of a gift card may persuade customers to view gift cards as more substantially meaningful gift items and increase gift card sales.
Also, gift cards may be used for generating additional sales besides the sales of a single retail outlet. For example, a net increase may be realized between two stores when gift cards are vended at one store that may be redeemed at a second company's store(s). For example, two companies that sell complimentary products may both experience increased sales by vending a gift card at one company's store that is redeemable at the other company's store or at both companies' stores. Thus, some retail companies, such as pharmacies, may desire to cross promote gift card sales with other companies.
One arrangement for multiple gift cards may be to simply carry multiple cards that are adapted to be used on another company's retail computer network. However, existing retail stores generally must address limited display and inventory space within their stores for the products that they carry. Because gift cards may be considered non-staple products, these gift cards may have lower priority when vying for store space allocation. Thus, existing retails stores may be limited in the number of cross selling arrangements that they may be involved in.